


friendly neighborhood Spiderman

by academmia



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Arguments, BAMF Peter Parker, Breaking the Cycle of Abuse, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Themes of suicide, in which peter's trauma makes him angry not scared, peter centric, peter's superhero work is underrated, this is a bit dark fair warning, tony is a total dickhead in the first part but he gets better
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28785021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/academmia/pseuds/academmia
Summary: "Why don't you just stick to being friendly neighborhood spiderman?"People say that like it's easy. Like Peter doesn't deal with the darkest things on the street. When there are no aliens, just people who are hurt. The Avengers have movie nights in their tower and come out every 2 years for the next Alien threat. Peter talks people down from jumping off buildings. Peter works twice as hard and is always told he's not working hard enough Peter's tired, he's burn out and more than anything else he just wants some fucking respectOR: the one where Tony realizes what a BAMF Peter is and Peter learns to tell the adults in his life what he needs
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 20
Kudos: 161





	friendly neighborhood Spiderman

**Author's Note:**

> this fic has been floating around in my head for 3 years, here it is.
> 
> tony is pretty bad in this first chapter, but in the second one he will do better I promise!

Peter Parker isn't a normal kid. 

And that’s not just because he’s a quirky Jewish kid who would rather keep his head in the book than in the game. Peter isn’t a normal kid because he can’t wear long sleeve shirts anymore. Too many scars, scars that pile up. He got his first one when a mugger's knife hit his side the first night he put the mask on. He stitched it up terribly, determined it would be the last one. It wasn’t. Peter’s fingers are hard and calloused from the climbing and his skin is scarred from the climbing. His brain isn’t normal either. He doesn’t relax, he scans every room he enters to find out how he could take advantage of it. By the time he leaves a building, he knows where all the best hiding spots are, how to evacuate it, where the best spots to shoot from are. He doesn’t sleep either, kept awake by everything he’s seen from his googles. 

Peter Parker isn't a normal teenager. He’s seen people die before he got his driver's License. He’s been too late to save people and suffered the consequences. On homecoming night he ditched his girlfriend to go fight her dad and carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. Death has made him who he is, a scrawny 11 years old becoming an adult sitting at his uncle’s grave. 

Peter Parker takes care of the people Big-name superheroes don’t give a fuck about. He makes sure people on the street have food to eat. He talks to them, knows their names, knows the things they like, and knows the oddly specific things they don’t. Tony sees Statistics, Peter sees people. [number for sexual assult] happen every year, and Peter knows that because once he found a teen girl shaking on a corner. He asked her what was wrong, and she was ashamed to say. Her eyes looked dead. Peter helped her home, beat the fucker who did it up, and checks in on her every Tuesday. He’s sat with people on the roofs, and he asks them what they’re doing up there. They ask him if they should jump, he says no, but he can’t always tell them why. On good days, the person on the roof steps down and lets Peter take them for ice cream; on bad days Peter will scream into his pillow because he still smells the blood. 

nobody cares

“Oh yeah Pete’s just a little hero, he does small stuff” 

“One day you’ll be ready for the big leagues just stick with the neighborhood stuff” 

Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. The Avengers think it cute, shows how he’s a baby, a newbie, how he has it easy. Peter wears it like a badge of honor. Yeah sure, maybe the Avengers save the world. But Spider-Man makes it worth living in. 

The avengers retreat to their fancy tower for drinks after the latest big bad hits the city. Peter takes to the streets to help people put their lives get back together. 

He does it without thanks, he stitches himself up so Mr. Stark won’t take the suit away. He treats Spider-Man like it’s a hobby like he can take away Spider-Man as if he’s Peter’s cell phone. Spider-Man keeps people alive, people the avengers don’t seem to give a fuck about. 

He does it without thanks. He knows Uncle Ben would be proud of him, even if the Avengers see his work as meaningless. One day they’ll see it. Or maybe they won’t, but either way, Peter will always belong to Queens. He isn’t an Avenger. He doesn’t go big. He goes home, and he gets shit done. 

He goes to school. He gets teased by his fellow superheroes for that too, and most days it feels fucking impossible. He scrapes by, trying to hang onto his scholarships. He runs out of sick days in September and just starts hiding his injuries. He engineers custom Energy drinks to get him through first period when he stays up stifling screams. He doesn’t rest, he goes through 4 hours of homework and stays out on the streets until he can’t keep his eyes open. Tony tells him to take a break, Peter ignores his messages. Tony doesn’t understand. Tony grew up filthy rich, and there are certain parts of Peter’s life he will never understand. 

Resting is a luxury, and it’s not one Peter Parker gets. He doesn’t have a million-dollar budget or a team with the best firepower in the world. He has the hands, his brain, and his best friend every other week. Peter Parker has to be faster, smarter, stronger than the other guy and he can’t do that sleeping. he needs less than most people(or so he tells himself) 

one night after Decathlon practice MJ found him shaking. She asked him what’s wrong. Peter figured “everything” wasn’t what she wanted to hear so he just shook his head. She sighed. 

“You need people Peter,” she said. Then she gave him her number and walked away.

Maybe he does need people. He needs people. He needs sleep. He needs more food, he needs respect, he needs to be faster, stronger, a better student, he needs Tony to fucking listen to him for once. He has none of those things. He’s still standing. 

Maybe Peter Parker is a bomb about to explode. But Peter Parker doesn’t have time to worry about the future when there is the crushing weight of the present. 

He sighs. Pulls out his history homework. He grabs a pencil and scribbles through the answers, one by one. He makes a mental note to get Karen to remind him to do this earlier, he can’t handle history this late. He has a test coming up. He needs to get a good grade on it, or else Mr. Stark says he’ll take the suit. Peter will still go out, of course, he will, but what Mr. Stark doesn’t understand is that more people will die if he takes the suit away. He’s stopped trying to tell him that; Mr. Stark always tells him the same thing

“You need to take care of yourself, you can’t save everyone” 

“You can’t save everyone” a band-aid over a bullet wound. He can try. Try and fix the messes of a world that he was born into. Try and fix the aftermath of wars legends start. Go one more hour so another person sees another sunset. Yeah, he can’t save everyone, but he can stop more people from dying. 

Sometimes Peter thinks he can’t handle the pressure. He found gray hair at the back of his head last Thursday. Some days everything is so loud and heavy. Some days he doesn’t think he can get our head. Some days he floats through the city instead of swinging, and he feels unreal. Some days Peter Parker stands on the edges of buildings and he looks down. He doesn’t jump, just looks. 

He knows he’s not going to grow old. Peter Parker will die as he lived, surrounded by tragedy. Hopefully, he’ll go out saving people. Hopefully, he’ll get a few more days where he feels impossibly happy before he bites the bullet. 

Peter is really fucking tired. 

The kind of tired that never really leaves you. He goes all throughout his day, more active than most but he is always so tired. Tired but not sleepy. He’s tired in a way that sleep cannot soothe. He just. Wants a hug. But not a pity hug, the kind he knew Tony was willing to give. He wanted the kind of hugs ben gave, the hugs that made him feel seen. 

The adults in his life just wanted to protect him. Peter Parker could protect himself, what he really wanted was for them to tell him that they saw how hard he was working and that they were proud. He wanted to support, not threats. He wanted someone to talk to him, instead of pretending they knew him. 

He stays up all night on homework. The next morning he hides the bags under his eyes with makeup and when may asks him if he slept well he tells an enthusiastic lie. He eats her blueberry Pancakes, doesn’t taste them but thanks her none the less. 

Peter gets on the train he takes every day and counts new ways it could kill him. He’s not claustrophobic, it doesn’t fit his line of work, he’s just aware. Aware of how everything could suddenly fall and he and the 17 strangers in the subway car would be crushed in an instant. He pulls out his phone and scrolls through the memes Ned sends him. 

Ned is one of the best people in the world, Peter decides. Ned helps him with everything, he will send Peter notes and tell him test answers. He makes sure he eats and makes sure he smiles. Peter doesn’t think he would be alive without Ned. Ned makes him feel like a person. Once, Peter watched a man shoot himself on a Sunday night and he came into school looking like a zombie, at the end of the day Ned took him to the park and made him laugh. Peter doesn’t even remember why he was laughing, but he laughed so hard his ribs hurt. Ned makes him forget. Ned is a brilliant hacker and an even better friend. When Peter apologized for not carrying his weight in their friendship Ned gave him a hug and told him Being Spider-Man was hard and that it was ok. No one ever validated how hard it was. 

The train doors open and Peter steps out. He runs up the stairs and jumps over a metal turn style. The students pour into Midtown high and Peter walks like a Zombie over to his locker. A few girls whisper about Iron man on his way there. When he gets to his locker, Ned and MJ are already there, talking about the next Deecaron meet.

“Wow, Parker you look like shit,” 

“Good morning to you MJ,” Peter says with a smile he doesn’t mean, and she rolls her eyes. Sometimes when he’s selfish Peter wishes they would notice the upturned line on his fake isn’t really. That being said, it’s the only kind of smile he shows these days, so who can blame them? 

“You ready for the Physic test at the end of the week?” Ned asks. 

Peter laughs. It’s hollow, “Probably not, but I’ll study so it should be fine.” 

“Wanna do a group study session?” Ned asks, “we could watch Star Wars afterward.” 

Peter wants to. He really does, but he knows he’s too slow for Ned’s genius. He used to be able to rival it, but these days his brain works 3 times slower. What was supposed to be a study session will quickly turn into a tutoring session if Peter shows up. 

“Sorry man, I’m busy?”

“With your *thing*” Ned Whispers. 

“You know I know what you’re talking about” -MJ says but they ignore her 

“Yep,” Peter says, ignoring the bubbling guilt of using spider man as an excuse again. 

“Okay then,” Ned says. The disappointment hits like needles. Peter gives an apologetic grin, despite the stinging. 

They wave at each other and go their separate ways. Peter goes back into the haze as if throwing on his favorite sweater. He scraps through each class, sitting in the back row and watching the whiteboard drift in and out. 

He gets to history, the last class before Lunch. He hopes that maybe, the genius he has that everyone loves to rave about will save him now. It does not, because Peter is too tired to listen. This is probably what adults mean when they talk about the unused potential. Peter works himself till there is nothing left and people ask him for more. It’s so stupid. After 45 minutes of trying to concentrate, the bell rings. Peter sighs in relief, throws his stuff into his bag, and follows Ned when he gets up. He’s not quite sure he could get there without him. But before he can, his history professor gives him a look. Peter gives Ned a small smile(or so he thinks) and walks over to his teacher’s desk. 

“So Peter,” He says, leaning his elbows on the desk, “How are you feeling about the test tomorrow”

_ Horrible _ , “pretty good!”

“You sure?” 

Peter shifts nervously, “yeah!” 

His teacher sighs, “Ok, if you’re sure. I know you got a lot going on Peter, being a teenager is hard but if you don’t do well on this you might fail this class,” 

Peter knows that, he’s spent hours at night calculating the way he’s failing this class. He knows what he has to do to get his grades up, and it haunts him like a ghost in a Halloween movie. Maybe this would all be fine if he just went over to Mr. Stark’s place and asked for help. But he knows Mr. Stark would do more than he has to. 

“I know,” Peter says. He doesn’t wait any longer, he turns around and walks out the door. 

He has gone this far on his own, he’s not going to let anyone help him 5 feet to the finish line and then claim the credit. He’ll do what he needs to do. He takes a second to lean against a locker and breathe, just for a second. He never really gets time. The halls are empty, most of the kids are in the cafeteria. Peter should be there, with his friends, but he doesn’t want to be there. They’re going to ask him if he’s hungry, does he need help with the studying, they’re worried about him. 

Peter Parker is alone. People say he isn’t, and yeah he isn’t literally alone. But there isn’t anyone like him. He thought the Avengers were like him, but they aren’t either. The Avengers think he’s crazy. Peter walks into a room of superheroes and it’s like High School has found another form. Spider-man lives a lonely existence. On good days, stopping other people from being lonely makes him good. On bad days, he screams into his Pillow until he can’t anymore. 

He ducks into an empty classroom and pulls out his laptop. He watches police patrols, scrolls through old cold cases that haven’t been solved. He finds the overwhelming amount of work the Cops aren’t doing and stops himself from destroying his computer. The Avengers, the cops, always on moral high horses. Too high to see what’s really going on. He pulls out his notebook and marks areas to go check out. He finds deals on food that he can take with them. His eyes flutter open and closed but it doesn’t stop him. Peter would have quit on day one if he couldn’t work when tired. Peter will stop working when he’s dead. 

The bell rings. He shuts his laptop and goes to his last class. The teacher calls a study lab and the entire class practically cheers. Peter doesn’t have the energy to jump with joy but he appreciates it regardless. He pulls out a notebook, intending to get some work done. He ends up just doodling but he doesn’t fall asleep, so everything’s good. 

The last bell rings for the day. Peter leaves Midtown through the back exit so he won’t run into his friends. He changes in an alley four blocks and two avenues away. He breathes a little easier when he slips into the mask, it always feels like swimming to the surface when he does. He webs his backpack to the wall, this time with electric webs. He jumps up onto the roof and starts swinging. Wind whoops in his ears and Peter soars with it. 

“Hey, Karen.” 

“Good afternoon Peter, how was school today?” 

_ Pretty shitty actually,  _ “Good! How was your day?” 

“Good,” Karen says, and Peter smiles. 

“Ok cool, so we’re going to be heading over to Astoria, there’s been something weird going on at the parties there” 

“Mapping out a route,” Karen says, and the quickest way to Queens appears in his left eye.

He thwips out another web and thanks her for the map. He makes it the base, a shady place with perfectly clean windows. He breaks in from the top right. He hits the guy in charge before he can pull out his gun. Karen times it, he was 0.5% faster. His blows are getting more accurate, quicker, sharper. On nights when he stays with Mr. Stark, Peter wakes up at 4 and wraps his hands. Then he starts swinging at the Punching bags designed to hold up even in the face of Captain America. By the time he’s done they all fall to the ground, one by one. Peter is fighting against time, it’s not always about how hard you can hit, it’s about hitting the right places and hitting as fast as you can. Captain America has a moral code when it comes to fighting, Peter believes you can go for the eyes when you need to. Within 2 minutes, 12 bodies have hit the floor. Peter lets himself look at the blood for 5 seconds before moving on. 

“Karen, where are they storing the drugs?” 

“There’s a storage room right blow you” 

“Got it,” He jumps down to the second floor, going out a window and in the one below it. He breaks the door of the steel room with a quick twist. The walls are covered in shining green vitals. Peter curses. He needs to get rid of this. He could call the cops, but he doesn’t trust them not to take it as their own weapon in the name of “good”. 

“Karen, how do I dispose of all of this?” Peter asks. 

“If you can get it to a temperature below 0 the bonds will break.” 

“How do I do that?” 

“The suit has a freeze feature,” 

“Of course it does,” Peter says, “Do it,” 

The room fills with ice. The vitals shake and glass explodes. The liquid freezes then changes color. Yeah, it’s not salvageable. 

Peter leaves through another window, swings far enough away that the building is out of sight. He feels the concrete underneath his feet, the chill of the New York skyline. He pants and hears a few sirens in the background. 

“Do a body scan, Karen,” Peter says. 

“You have bruises on your knees,” 

Peter smiles. That’s nothing. 

“Anything big going on right now?” 

“Not anything that I can find,” She says, “But you do have an important Chemistry test tomorrow, I would recommend going home to study.” 

Peter groans, “Yeah I should probably do that,” 

He swings home, it’s muscle memory by now. He lets Karen plan out a route but Peter could be dropped anywhere in the city and make his way back to the cozy apartment he and May shared, across from Del Mars, on the third floor of an apartment building he’s spent his entire life in. 

He comes in through his bedroom window. His feet lightly drop onto tho the fire escape. He pulls off his mask and stretches his arms above his head. The window drops shut(it probably needs repairs) 

“Okay,” He whispers to himself, “History test, I can do this” 

He pulls out his notebook. There is barely anything in it, Peter curses his past self for sleeping through all the important lectures. He considers texting his friends for help, but when he picks up his phone the clock says 2am. Peter can’t wake his friends up this late. 

“Karen, do you think I could download information to my brain?” 

‘Unfortunately not Peter,” 

Peter laughs, but it might be a cry or a scream he doesn’t know. He pulls out his textbook and forces himself to read. Is he supposed to be looking at page 15 or 47? He doesn’t know, and that’s what everyone’s always saying. That he’s a stupid kid, that he has no idea what he’s doing, and here Peter is proving them wrong. He’s tired, he’s overworked, he wants everything he can’t have and he’s pissed at everything. He bangs his fist against his desk, but he doesn’t have the energy for it to make a bang. 

Peter took a deep breath. He was going to get through this, like he always did, by himself. That’s all he had at the end of the day, his head. It would have to be good enough. Peter didn’t have anything else. It would be good enough. He could do this. Everything was going to be fine. 

\---- 

He could not do this. 

The test sat in front of him and Peter felt like he was reading a different language. He didn’t know where to start, he was so confused he didn’t even know what question he would ask. The only thing that he understood was that in the not so distant future he would be seeing this test again, with a big red F at the top. Peter pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth to stop himself from crying. He can’t cry, not one he told his teacher that he had this, not when flash was 2 desks away from him, and not when 3 hours from now he has to be twice as good as Tony Stark to be considered his equal. 

He clenches his fist. Breaking a table is a terrible idea, he tells himself. 

_ But wouldn’t it feel good?  _ Part of him whispers the part that keeps Peter up, trying to convince him to find Ben’s killed and make him bleed. 

Peter shakes his head. The period ends and he hands his test to his teacher without meeting his eyes. Ned bounces over to his desk, and despite just failing a test Peter has enough Logic to figure out that he did well. Flash is smiling too, and the monster that lives inside Peter is enraged, Flash has it so easy and yet Karma does not come for Peter Parker. He feels like he’s about to burst. 

“Hey Peter, how did you-” Ned starts, but Peter bolts out of the classroom before he can finish. Yelling at his best friend would not make things better. He darts through students one by one, trying to get to the doors. It’s the end of the day, and Peter just needs to get out. He doesn’t care that he is going to have to be around Mr. Stark for the rest of the day, he just needs to get as physically far from the history test as he can. Happy is always punctuational, and typically his consistency annoys peter, but today he’s so grateful for it. 

He slides into the black car, slams the door fast. 

“Hey Peter, you’re here early.” 

“Yeah class got out early.” 

“Hmmm,” Happy says, not completely convinced, but Peter doesn’t care. He can tell Mr. Stark what he wants. 

Peter settles into the leather cousins, one year of this, and he still can't get used to the fact that he’s sitting on it. This car probably costs more than a year of rent. 

“Anything going on at school?” Happy asks. 

“Nope,” Peter says. 

Tony thinks he’s a terrible liar but that’s not true. Peter just makes himself seem like a terrible liar so when he lies, no one sees it coming. No one suspects anything from innocent Peter Parker. Peter lies all the time, sometimes he doesn’t know who he is when he’s not lying. Survival is his constant headspace, even when he’s safe. Mr. Stark knows Peter, nervous awkward Peter who wants a superhero mentor and who needs to be checked in. 

He doesn’t know Spiderman, the kid who watched his uncle get shocked, the kid who knows so many ways to kill someone, the angry kid. The superhero who could rival Captain America on a good day. The superhero doesn't work with fancy blasters straight out of star wars, just his fists, and his mouth. Peter’s rose-colored glasses have been broken time and time again. 

Happy sighs used to not getting any information from Peter. He leans against the window and watches the city streets pass by until they’re in one of the nicest parts of the city. It’s so clean Peter can’t fathom how it’s real. 

They arrive at Avengers Towers. The building could reach the clouds. When he first saw it, Peter was in awe that he got to go inside. Today, Peter just thanks Happy for the ride and tries to stuff down the anger at seeing this stupid tower. It’s not even that good looking. Stupid building. 

His dirty converse is a stark contrast to the sparkling clean floors. He scans his keycard, and the computer shows his profile. Peter stopped gasping at that months ago. He swerves through the workers twice his age and ducks into an elevator. 

“Hey FRIDAY,” Peter says. 

“Hello, baby spider,” 

“Could you not call me that?” 

“It’s what Boss has you named as in my system,” FRIDAY says, and Peter grits his teeth. Of course, it is. 

“Ugh ok. Could you take me to the lab,” 

Friday beeps in conformation and the elevator  _ whooshes  _ up, steady as always. Peter leans against the metal walls and watches the building numbers go up all the way until the penthouse. The doors ding open and Peter puts on his “I can handle this” smile. 

Mr.Stark’s lab is what Peter would call an organized mess. His shoulders automatically become less tense as soon as he enters. He can feel his hands twitch, overtaken by the urge to create. Science respects him. Science is a giant see of possibility and science is just the right amount of loud.

“Hey, Underoos!” Mr. Stark calls from his spot in the back of the lab. He’s working with a blowtorch and his bulky goggles are on his face. He’s waving at Peter while holding a ridiculously dangerous tool, and it almost laughs. 

“Hey, Mr. Stark.” 

He sets his bag down at the corner of his workstation and opens his laptop. Hopefully, this can be one of those chill lab days where he and Mr. Stark do their own things and Peter leaves feeling relaxed. 

Tony starts to stride over to him. No such luck. Peter sighs and minimizes the tab. 

“So Kid how’s your day been?” 

_ Yesterday I took apart a drug ring, the day before I let another person die _ , “My day has been good.” 

“Yeah?” Tony says, mouth twitching up into what Peter now knows to be a smile, “That’s great. I’ve been stuck in meetings all day, Pep is really on my case this week.” 

“That sucks,” Peter says. He doesn’t care. 

Tony’s face seems to drop. Peter pulls out his laptop again. 

“You had a history test today right?” Tony says, obviously trying to start the conversation up again. It’s the worst question he could have asked. 

“Yep,” Peter says. 

“How’d it go.” 

“I failed,” Peter says. He doesn’t know why he didn't lie. He wants to see what Tony will do. He wants an excuse to snap. 

Tony frowns, “Did you pay attention in class?” 

“Yeah,” Peter says.

“That’s funny,” Tony says, voice getting harder, “Because FRIDAY told me you’ve been out in the suit for 8 extra hours this week and that you’ve been falling asleep in class.” 

“So now you’re spying on me?” 

“Peter.” 

“I’m doing what I have to do!” 

“Kid you can’t fall asleep in class.” 

“Adult, you can’t spy on me without my consent.” 

Tony groans, “Can’t you just be more mature about this? I’m trying to help you.” 

Peter wants to laugh. Tony Stark has the audacity to tell him to be more mature. Peter doesn’t remember a time when he got to be immature. 

“I never asked for that.” 

“That’s why you need it.” 

“I don’t need your help. I’m fine.” 

“Yes, you do! Kid, you have to be more responsible!” 

Peter Parker is angry. His blood is full of fire and pent up rage that has been growing since he watched his Uncle die. Peter Parker is tired of working to be a good nephew, a good student, a good hero, and getting told that he’s not trying. He is tired of not being shown a single dose of respect when he works twice as hard. He is tired of living in Tony Stark’s shadow. He deserves more than this.

“You don’t get to tell me that. You don’t get to tell me that I need to be more responsible. I work harder than everyone on the avenger combined, I go to school and I get shot at every single day. I talk people off buildings and you belittle my work. I watch people die every fucking die while you come out of your tower every two years when an alien decides to drop in! I help may, I work on lab projects here, I patrol every night. I’m tired of being treated like some dumb kid who needs someone to take back the wheel because he doesn’t know what he’s doing!” 

“Peter, I-” Tony says, hurt evident on his face, “I love you.” 

“Yeah,” Peter says bitterly, picking up his bag and turning to go, “But you don’t respect me do you?” 

——

**Author's Note:**

> BAMF peter has always been my thing, I think his work as a local superhero should be focused on! 
> 
> part 2 will come soon, comments rock my world


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